Crazy turnout meaning very heavily a Democratic electorate. Turnout was 55/45 D/R among those who display a partisan preference in 2008, 50/50 D/R in 2004, 53/47 D/R in 2000, and 53/47 D/R in 1996. Any partisan turnout model based primarily on 2008 (and note I'm not claiming this is actually the case) will over-estimate D turnout. It's pretty likely that we get turnout much closer to '96 and '00.

At this point, I'd put a lot less stock in Nate's numbers than I would've several months ago. His model is likely to be "right" if the turnout numbers are where the aggregate of all the polls place them. His model's problem is it doesn't know anything about the early voting data that's coming in. Meaning that if the early voting partisan turnout numbers (and the resultant overall partisan turnout numbers) are different than what the aggregate of the polls predicted, his model will be "wrong". I'm not at all sure whether that will be the case, but that's an extremely important factor that he's counting on polling companies to be correct about. Now polling companies could be adjusting their turnout projections based off early voting numbers, but they also might not be, especially the less savvy ones.

All in all, I'm much more worried that the pollsters are overestimating Obama's turnout than Romney's, if only because their main data point will be the crazy turnout in 2008.

The top 1 percent may have the best houses, educations, and lifestyles, says the author, but “their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live.”

I'm not sure this premise is true, at least as "other 99 percent" refers to the bottom bunch of Americans.

A hypothetical world where, in 25 years, conditions for the bottom 99% have deteriorated, even significantly, but the remainder of the world rises in prosperity would be a perfectly acceptable place for the top 1% to live. Viewing this from a perspective only focused on the United States ignores that the rich are increasingly a transnational class. They're not wedded to the United States to market products, create products, and find innovations and employees. There is no genuine reason why they, as a block, cannot make their lives elsewhere.

If all we're going to do is enforce a No-Fly Zone to prevent him from killing more civilians/revolutionaries, I support it. I think it's far more likely that this ends in us assisting in a regime change and helping install a government and economic regime favorable to Western interests that may or may not be what the Libyan people would like to create for themselves.

In other words, I think the international community has the responsibility to protect human rights, but has no right to dictate the political and economic rules a people adopts for itself. The United States and its allies have a very poor record in following the latter.

It's pretty clear this is where things are going, at least at the state level. The furor that would result from gutting Medicare, Social Security, etc. at the federal level is probably too much even for this Congress to survive. This is not an American solution to the recession though; European governments have been pushing austerity for over a year. Wisconsin, etc. is just the beginning of it here in the United States. For the last thirty years, the right has successfully convinced enough people who pay attention to politics that trickle-down is a valid idea. The low tax/low service model is the natural result of that. Until the people who are hurt by this begin to exercise political power, these policies are going to be pushed.

I'd also note that your characterization of these policies as helping Texas 'weather' the financial crisis is probably overblown. Certainly their business friendly environment has helped their economy 'weather' the crisis better than most, but I doubt the average person in Texas has 'weathered' the last 2+ years very well at all.

Because just because their country was founded in a not-particularly-moral way 60 years ago doesn't mean it's less legitimate than a country founded in a not-particularly-moral way 200 years ago. I support their right to exist as a country, much as I support the right of Bolivia or Ghana to exist.